Danica Patrick: 'I missed being relevant'

IndyCar driver Danica Patrick waits in her car during veteran refresher testing for the Indy 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Tuesday, May 1, 2018.

INDIANAPOLIS — If Danica Patrick were armed with the power to rewrite history, there might be a couple of days she’d like to go back and edit. Perhaps the auto racing trailblazer would touch up the ending of the 2009 Indianapolis 500 so that she crossed the finish line ahead of Helio Castroneves and Dan Wheldon rather than just behind them.

Or maybe she’d go back to tinker with her show-stealing 500 debut in 2005 — the one where she became the first woman to lead laps in the historic race — and add a little more fuel to her tank so that she could make a run at Wheldon instead of having to settle for fourth.

Then again, maybe she’d leave those memorable moments alone. But if there’s one part of her storied racing career that she’d seriously consider rewriting, it’s those years in NASCAR, where, she confessed Wednesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, she had become largely irrelevant.

“As time wore on, I missed that relevancy of being in the game and being someone who before the race, people are (asking), ‘Who do you think is going to win today?’ My name did not pop up in NASCAR, you know,” Patrick said between stints during Wednesday’s Indianapolis 500 manufacturers test. “Other than that first Daytona 500 when I was on the pole, most of the other races weren’t like that. So I missed that — I missed being relevant.”

So far, relevancy hasn’t been an issue for her at IMS. Patrick’s preparations for the final 500 miles of her racing career are among the most-well documented storylines to color the beginning of May. When she’s not on track in her No. 13 GoDaddy Chevrolet, Patrick can usually be found surrounded by a mob of media members. Wednesday was no different, as a large crowd gathered around her Ed Carpenter Racing garage to see how Patrick was feeling after a challenging first day behind the wheel.

“(Yesterday) was absolutely horrible,” Patrick said with a smile as she somewhat facetiously recalled the pains of re-familiarizing herself with an Indy car after seven years away. “I felt very uncomfortable. … But the first couple laps (Wednesday) I got flat out, so much different than it was yesterday.

Patrick said that the steering issues that troubled her Tuesday had mostly been remedied and that she’s slowly but surely growing re-accustomed to the nuances of an Indy car. The goal now is to continue that process and come Pole Day and race weekend, give fans and pundits alike reason to say her name when asking one another, “Who’s coming out on top on May 27?”

Patrick thinks that’s possible, and so does her team team owner. Ed Carpenter has said repeatedly since news broke that she’d be joining his team that this is not a farewell tour for her and not a publicity stunt for ECR. They teamed up with one goal in mind: winning.

“In Indy cars, she’s always been efficient with managing the car and producing results,” Carpenter said of his driver who has six top-10 finishes at Indy in seven starts. “I’m excited to get this month kicked off, and I think she’s going to bring real value to the team.”